E3: The Nintendo Conference

Nintendo Revolution and Game Boy Micro revealed at the firm's annual Hollywood haunt - but despite some exciting announcements, was something missing?

Nintendo's pre-E3 conference in Los Angeles today may not have provided the next-generation information most gamers were expecting, but the company did have a few surprises up its sleeve.

Revolution, Nintendo's successor to GameCube, turned up in a pre-final form of the hardware, which isn't due until sometime next year, and apart from a computer-generated clip taken from Metroid Prime 3, nothing was shown in the way of games for the new console either.

Company president Satoru Iwata was cryptic throughout his presentation, refusing to give out any major details of Revolution's hardware specifications, its expected performance or even how its rumour-beset controller would look. Iwata did reveal that Revolution will play GameCube games and, using an internal add-on, will be able to play DVD movies too.

Unsurprisingly, Nintendo's staple franchises, including Mario, Zelda, Metroid and Donkey Kong, will all turn up on the console at some point in the future. Other confirmed games include a new version of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles from Square Enix and a new Super Smash Brothers game from Nintendo, which should launch with the console in 2006.

The real selling point for Revolution could, however, turn out to be a new service Nintendo is planning that would allow you to download titles from the company's extensive back-catalogue of hit games for its previous consoles. And since Revolution will supports SD cards, which are also used in the Nintendo DS handheld, there's a chance that you'll be able to download games or demos to Revolution for use on DS. There was no mention of pricing for the service during the press conference, but it would be highly surprisingly if no costs were involved.

In his presentation, Iwata did confirm one aspect of Revolution: it will be smaller than either PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. And smaller size is the main feature of another new piece of Nintendo hardware - the Game Boy Micro.

This new handheld is a redesign of the Game Boy Advance that shrinks it down to something more in line with Apple's iPod Mini. Aimed at the image-conscious buyer, Game Boy Micro comes in at just 80 grams and sports a 2-inch backlit LCD screen - in contrast to the Game Boy Advance SP's 2.9-inch front-lit screen. You'll be able to customise how the handheld looks by adding new faceplates much like those already popular with mobile phone users. Nintendo didn't say how much we'll be paying for it, but Game Boy Micro should start showing up in shops this autumn.

Nintendo's other portable, the DS, is still doing well with gamers, and the company is promising exciting things during the coming months. Topping the new stuff is the rolling out of the first DS games playable over the Internet. Titles like Animal Crossing DS, Mario Kart DS and a new Tony Hawk skateboarding game will let you to go up against other DS owners in the next room or on the next continent.

But more-traditional DS games are still coming too, and Nintendo briefly showed off several of its upcoming titles at the conference, including Mario & Luigi 2, a new Super Mario game (the first 2D Mario platform game since the early 1990s), Nintendogs, the music-based "non-game" Electroplankton and others.

Things are, however, looking less well for Nintendo's current home console, the GameCube, which will see only 60 new games during the rest of this year. Thankfully, for both Nintendo and its army of faithful followers, one of those 60 games is a new instalment in the Legend Of Zelda series, which features a new, realistic look for hero Link, who is now imbued with shape-shifting powers too.

Other GameCube highlights included dancing game Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix, a new team-based military strategy game called Battalion Wars, Mario's footie debut in Super Mario Strikers, a new Pokémon game and another instalment in the Mario Party series.

The absence of concrete information or footage of games for Revolution is disappointing, especially in the face of (or perhaps because of) the strong showings by both Microsoft and Sony. But Nintendo has been clear that this is not the year of the Revolution. For that, we're all going to have to wait until 2006.

We'll have much more on Revolution in the coming weeks.

Alex Wollenschlaeger & Adam Doree